Format: 12-lathe

Ned Collette - QuaranTunes Series No.026 ( / )

12″ lathe Edition of 24. Numbered. Risograph Loose leaf cover and back art printed at LOOKYHERE. also available at bandcamp. $60 Australian ex-pat, Ned Collette, came to our attention via circuitous routes, but the song cycle he created for Old Chestnut (FTR 362) was a classic of avant folk form, and its instrumental follow-up,  Afternoon—Dusk (FTR 468), was brilliance of an entirely different type. Thus, when we asked him to participate in the QuaranTunes series, on Friday Oct. 9 2020, we had no idea what he’d be doing. We just knew it’d be damn good. And we was right! Playing acoustic guitar Ned started off with a new vocal tune, then played his way through classic tracks from Old Chestnut… Read more »

Thurston Moore - QuaranTunes Series No.33 ( / / )

12″ Single Sided Lathe. Numbered. Edition of 37. Loose leaf risograph cover / back art printed at LOOKY HERE. OUT OF PRINT Still drenched in the grease of a traditional Thanksgiving goose, Thurston Moore appeared to us on the evening of Friday November 27, 2020. Sitting in a bedroom in Bethel CT, he whipped out an acoustic guitar, and proceeded to serenade us with the first instrumental preview of a work in progress.  “Son, You Jest” is the working title of Moore’s “rock opera” (he prefers the term “song cycle”) about Lou Reed’s 1959 electroshock sessions. The piece presented here is “Connecticut Heaven,” which was a phrase that repeatedly appeared in Reed’s journals of the era. It presumably refers to… Read more »

Byron Coley, Loren Connors - Quarantunes Series No.049 ( / )

12″ Lathe Edition of 41. Numbered. Loose leaf risograph cover / back art printed at LOOKY HERE. OUT OF PRINT  BANDCAMP DIGITAL  On the evening of Friday March 19, 2021, we were honored to have guitarist Loren Connors appear as part of our Quarantunes series. When discussing what the format would be like, Loren suggested it might be cool if I did some reading to accompany him. We had collaborated over the years on a variety of projects, and we struck upon  the idea of sourcing the text from Loren’s book, Autumn’s Sun. This was a volume originally published by Thurston Moore & myself as part of the celebration of Loren’s 50th Birthday, and had just been reissued in lightly… Read more »

Dan Melchior - QuaranTunes Series no. 053 ( / )

12″ Edition of 26. Numbered / Risograph looseleaf cover / back art printed at LOOKYHERE. OUT OF PRINT Recorded Friday April 16, 2021, here we find ex-pat UK polymath, Dan Melchior in full-on solo acoustic mode. This is just one of Dan’s many guises inside the fields of musical and visual arts, but it’s a damn good one. This evening’s performance was recorded inside a Carboro NC bathroom (legendary for its good acoustics), and we are tempted to say the post-modern skiffle revival begins here.  Dan’s plays a couple old songs, a couple covers (Mississippi Joe Callicott & Bobby Charles!!!) and a bunch of new ones that combine the cynical edge and humorous juxtaposition that marks much of his work… Read more »

Bruce Russell - QuaranTunes Series no.039 ( / / )

12″ Single Sided lathe. Edition of 33. Numbered. Loose leaf risograph cover / back art printed at LOOKYHERE. OUT OF PRINT On the morning of Saturday January 8, 2021 (Friday evening back on the East Coast of the U.S.), Bruce Russell waltzed his big black sneakers into his front room on New Zealand’s South Island, and tore a breakfast-sized hole in the cosmos.  Russell’s insane knack for producing aural belligerence with his guitar and pedals is legendary. Generations of Dead C fans have swooned amidst its sonic shadows, and Bruce’s many other solo and group projects over the last three-decades-plus have been pretty damn stellar. But I’ve never heard him in exactly the form he achieved for this one. There’s… Read more »

Andrea Pensado, id m theft able - Quarantunes Series no.022 / 037 ( / )

12” Lathe edition of 28. Numbered. Risograph loose leaf front / back art printed at LOOKYHERE. $60 Two of the shorter QuaranTunes sessions presented as a feature length meeting of the minds. What could be better? Andrea’s side was recorded on the evening of Friday Sept. 11, 2020 from her Salem MA parlor. Seated with a strap-on microphone, Andrea created an amazing collage of live vocal manipulations, interspersed with machine sounds, all presented with beautiful primitive visual overlays and alterations. Pensado is always exploring some new weird sound cave or another, and the one she spelunks here is wonderfully berserk.  id m theft able’s side was performed on Christmas Day 2020, and offers another bananas vision of what can be… Read more »

Orchid Spangiafora + Glands Of External Secretion - QuaranTunes Series no.032 : Chronicles of Magoo ( / )

12″ Lathe. Edition of 39. Numbered. Front/Back Loose Leaf Print Art printed at LOOKYHERE. $60 Orchid & Glands are two of the most interesting sonic-order-destroyers to have shown up in the last coupla centuries. Their collab LP, Couscous Bizarre (FTR 594) is an extremely intricate weave of two slightly different but equally blown approaches to the possiblities offered by musique concrète. Its berserk collaged structure was put together in bits and pieces over the course of years. Attempts to do this sort of stuff in a live context, improvising with pre-recorded bits and sounds, can get messy real fast (which is not always a bad thing). But how well could it possibly work if the two artists were working purely… Read more »

Dietrichs - QuaranTunes Series No.052 ( / )

12″ Lathe Edition of 25. Numbered. Bandcamp  Front/Back Loose Leaf Print Art printed at LOOKYHERE. Artforum – Alan Licht’s Best Music of 2021  OUT OF PRINT Recorded on the evening of Friday April 9, 2021, this father/daughter duo session was one of the high points of the QuaranTunes series.  Playing in what looked to be Don’s living room, both of these great improvisers brought their A games. Previously documented solely by the excellent PicaDisc CD, Dietrichs, this was my first opportunity to observe the duo live, and their interaction was electric. Don’s sax is well known from any recordings with and without Borbetomagus, and his ability to abrade the very skin of the air is one of his more magical… Read more »

Matt Krefting - QuaranTunes Series No.016 ( / )

12″ Lathe. Edition of 37. Numbered. Riso Looseleaf cover / back art printed at Looky Here in Greenfield, MA. $60 Mr. Krefting is a long-time friend of the FTR label. He has recorded a solo 10” lathe (FTR122), and albums with both Believers (FTR247) and Dead Girls Party (FTR279). We would happily welcome him into our homes any-dang-time-at-all, and so it was he appeared playing a Zoom concert on Friday July 31, 2020. Matt’s musical approach knows many alleys. But most recently this has involved sound generation using cassettes and perhaps also doo-dads of some sort (although it’s always the cassettes that provide the theater of the event). You might think there wouldn’t be much going for it visually (apart from… Read more »

Village Of Spaces - QuaranTunes Series No.029 ( / )

12″ Lathe. Edition of 28. Numbered. Riso Looseleaf cover / back art printed at Looky Here in Greenfield, MA. $60 In Western Massachusetts, the evening of Friday October 30, 2020 was cold and wet. But this Village of Spaces performance (with Dan Beckman-Moon, Amy Moon O.S., Kaethe Hostetter and Sean Breidenthal) took place in the lush backyard of a sun-dappled Santa Cruz house, with flowers and colors bursting everywhere. It was enough, just visually, for all of us to wish for instantaneous transportation 3000 miles west. That feeling was only amplified when the music started. The set began with “Song for Moon” (calling to mind the classicism of early Pearls Before Swine) and rambled through a variety of other acoustic settings,… Read more »